1.

It started with what the people Joe lived with called breakfast.

He woke late, as was usual for him when school was out, and hopped over to his house slippers, his feet cringing from the floor tiles. He couldn't believe he'd had to wear sweats to bed last night; but it was a cool summer and he was in a refrigerator of a house.

He headed off to the kitchen in search of something to eat.

He could tell that the house was empty. It had that quiet feel. From what he could see of the grounds as he strolled down the long jalousie-windowed walkway that connected the west wing to the rest of the house, the others were no where near him.

Joe watched as a stiff wind blew a seagull to a standstill. Its wings beat hard and quick and it gained a few feet. Shrieking, the gale redoubled its efforts, shoving the bird out of sight, and pushing a few trees parallel with the ground. Pitying the bird, Joe shook his head. There had to be better places to kill a couple of weeks of vacation.

In the kitchen, which was a little less frigid than his bedroom, Joe found a note next to a covered tray:

We saved you some breakfast.
We've gone swimming.
Find us if you can,
otherwise, see you at lunch.

He checked the clock and saw that it was a little after ten.

He pulled the striped cloth from the tray revealing soup, white rice and a two small fish-- both of which were eyeballing him.

He made a face. He wasn't in a mood for lunch.

He flicked the cloth back over the tray.

A search of the pantry and cupboards failed to turn up anything remotely satisfying, not even dry cereal. He did find a sheaf of sesame cracker and briefly considered crumbling them in a bowl and eating

them with milk, but discarded that idea when he discovered a half jar of Nutella. Unfortunately, there was no bread, not even breadsticks.

His hand made a fist and hit the door frame of the pantry. Fine, he thought. Miso soup and rice would have to do. He might he as well fix himself an egg and call it brunch.

He fried an egg with little enthusiasm and threw it on a plate, uncovered the tray and studied his 'brunch'.

Back when he was kid, breakfast would never have included this lousy excuse for rice. They all had sweet tooths, he and his mother and father, and starting off a hot summer's day with an ice cream filled brioche had not been uncommon.

Brioche. They hadn't called them brioches in Sicily. He'd found the word in a French cook book, next to a picture that tightened his throat and made his mouth water. Mama used to make them at night, and serve them at breakfast the following day. She always made lots, expecting that her men would discipline themselves and make the pastries last the week, but it never worked out that way. If there were brioches around for more than three days after mama made them it wasn't because her men had exercised proper self-discipline, it was because mama had screwed up the baking somehow. He could remember his father splitting brioches in half and drying them in the oven. Then filling them with chocolate cream (homemade) and dusting them with powdery sugar.

Poor man's profiteroles, papa called them. Everybody, because the Asakura's had had a lot of friends back then, would eat them between and after meals as snacks and desserts.

Joe ate one of the fish. He forgot what they were called, but they were small, shiny, hairy and dry. He could deal with those, but he when it came to fish he only wanted tuna, and he wanted it in garlic and olive oil, not grilled in soy bean paste.

Growing up he had the option of turning his nose up at either veal, tuna, or sausage. He could remember sitting at the dinner table and twirling dry pasta in his plate with his fork while his parents started in on their entrees. They'd ignore him: actually Papa would ignore him, mama would steam quietly until his father would make some comment like: "Giorgi, you look kinda pale?" Then he'd address mama, "Doesn't Giorgi look a little pale?" Then back to Giorgi, "You hungry, Giorgi? Maybe you want something else to eat?" and then to his wife, "Maybe there's something else in the kitchen Giorgi could eat? He looks a little pale."

Rubbing his temples, Joe grinned. She always made a big production of fixing him a special plate. "Picky, so picky! If you weren't so strong and handsome, already," she might say, "I'd swear you were a girl."

And Papa would wink as soon as mama's back was turned.

Back then his dinner would be whatever was left over from the antipasto (which vexed his mama to no end, "A growing boy needs hot food for strong bones") and his pasta, which by then was also cold, she'd drizzled with garlic and olive oil so it wouldn't stick together so much.

What Mama didn't know was that much later, when everyone was supposed to be asleep, he'd sneak back to the kitchen and snack on whatever she'd served for main course, chortling to himself as he stuffed his face and all the flavors burst cold and delicious in his mouth.

He just hadn't liked hot meals back then.

Breakfast, on the other hand, any breakfast mama put in front of him was eaten with gusto.

Joe looked down and saw that his 'breakfast' was partially eaten. He'd broken his egg on top of his rice. Bright yolk clung to glutinous grains and adhered to the sides of the bowl. A headless fish lay between his chopsticks. The other was already gone. He swallowed and lay his chopsticks against their rest, having suddenly lost his appetite.

Joe liked fish, but not for breakfast and especially not if the fish were of this type.

He cleared away his breakfast dishes and headed off for the bathroom.

He stared at the furo, the deep tub of heated water, with longing, then turned to glare at the shower head that hung on a hook. Stacked beneath it were a couple of wash buckets and bath stools.

Over the last couple of years he'd gotten used to the drill. Soap up, scrub down, rinse off completely in cold, then soak in hot and since it was summertime, the owners of the house had shut off the hot water and Nambu hadn't bothered to put it back on. Fuck it. He'd had a 'proper' breakfast. He could indulge and have a real bath.

Almost an hour later, pink scrubbed and glowing, Joe went in search of Nambu and the boys. Last night they'd talked about going swimming. Joe passed through room after room until he came to the patio. The coral flagstones gleamed like bone and the pool, which was long and deep and blue, looked about as inviting as-- he grinned-- a bucket, a bath stool and a shower-head.

Thinking of which, he had to refill the furo, or Nambu would pitch a fit.

Outside turned out to be several degrees warmer than indoors. Which was a bitch because it meant the damn house was really cold.

The wind had subsided, just a bit, and sunlight, which from indoors had seemed watery, promised a strong-lit afternoon. The few clouds in the sky were mere dimples in the smile of a beautiful day.

No wonder the others had cleared out so early, it was a good day to go exploring. Had he known the weather would have turned out so nice he would have made it a point to join them. Common sense and his tracking skills told him that the others had taken the north-south path off of the hill.

The more he walked, the more the path sloped, the more the path sloped, the less the wind blew. The less the wind blew, the warmer it got. until he had to take off his jacket and sweat stuck the fabric of his dark T-shirt to his back.

When he reached the bottom of the trail it was downright hot. He cursed not dressing for the weather.

He blamed the house. It looked all right, and commanded at least three kick-ass views, but it messed with a person's head, making him think he needed at least a wind-breaker to go outside. Wasn't a house supposed to shelter a person from the cold?

And then there was the window thing, except for the kitchen, which was pretty normal, the house was a study in extremes. Either there were lots of windows, or none. Take the bedrooms he, Ryu and Ken were sleeping in, all they had were little rectangles set near the ceilings, but the connecting hallway, and it was just that, a connecting hallway, no pictures, no interesting plants, was like an terrarium. Some person had had the bright idea laying gravel in the recesses against the wall and sticking bigger rocks on top of that. Every time he walked through it, he thought of Jinpei's little reptiles.

From what he could tell, the six of them were the only people around. A little creepy, he thought, as he walked along. The forest on either side of him was a seamless gray-green. Occasionally he saw a flash of movement, drunk with color, from the corner of his eye.

About a mile down the main path he heard the sounds of swimming.

He followed the noise off onto a track that dropped sharply away from the road. Joe slid a little, down the short incline before the track leveled off. Here the air was almost steamy. He could not believe the crazy weather! The other voices were much clearer. He could hear Dr. Nambu's laughter.

Of the guys only Jun wasn't swimming. She sat braced against a large flat rock, her thin little legs crossed at the ankle as she read a thick magazine. Wearing that huge pink sun hat she almost looked like a girl.

Jinpei, who stood on a tree branch across the water, was clutching a rope in his hands. He noticed Joe and screamed, "Joe! Look! I'm gonna McFarlane!"

Nambu and the older boys stopped what they were doing and also hailed Joe. Nambu noticed that the teenager had not dressed for swimming. He held back a sigh and tried to be happy that Joe had come at all.

Meanwhile, as Nambu watched Joe, Joe watched Jinpei.

The small boy sprang off the branch. Mimicking Spiderman, he swung out with his legs bent at either side of his body. He bent, then straightened so that his legs were stretched out behind him. Still swinging, he let go of the rope, executed two flips and dove cleanly into the water.

Ryu and Ken who'd been seeing the like all morning, yelled encouragement anyway. Jun whistled and clapped her hands.

Nambu watched Joe smile in genuine appreciation. The expression of pride and joy was fleeting. As soon as Jinpei's head popped out of the water Joe reassumed his blase facade.

"Did ya see?!!" hollered the youngest, "Did ya see?!!" over the other kids cheering.

"Pretty good, shrimp," grudged Joe.

Jinpei boy preened, his chest puffing out. His face seemed to glow. Then Ryu grabbed him and hurled him into the water, splashing Nambu and Ken and starting a water-fight.

"Geeks," Joe muttered as Jinpei was launched into the air again, this time by Nambu-- "This is the proper way to throw a colleague, Ryu, Ken, take note!"-- and stretched out atop the rock to sit beside Jun.

He looked over her shoulder. "Whoah!!!" he said, when he saw what she held on her lap, "Is that the new special double-issue of Racing World?!"

"Yes."

"COOL!" Joe made a grab for the magazine with one hand while the other clutched her shoulder.

"Hey!" Jun bopped him. "That's my magazine!"

He rubbed his head, "I just wanted to see the table of contents!"

"I was going there to see if there was anything you were interested in seeing!" she yelled. "You're so impatient," she pulled the magazine out of his loose grip.

He let go of the magazine and rested his head on her shoulder, "Sorry."

She glanced at him askance and paged to table of contents, "It's ok."

"I won't do it again."

His head stayed on her shoulder.

Both Jun's eyebrows rose but she refrained from comment. She found the page and spread it open, "I haven't looked at the article on the new racing engines. Would you like to look at that?" She had to crane her neck to meet his eyes, so close was his head to hers.

"Sure," he replied and in minutes they were deeply engrossed in the article.

Nambu had to call for lunch several times, but it took Jinpei to bring them back to the waterside. He flicked water at them, dampening Joe's arm and a gorgeous double page cross-section of the Daewoo that was never made so that it ripped in Joe's hand.

Joe sprang off the rock and took after the small boy at a dead-run knocking the magazine out of Jun's hand grinning like a shark. Off went the boy, barefoot and bare-chested, still in his wet trunks and also grinning like a shark.

"Jinpei!" Jun yelled. "Come back here and put some clothes on!"

Jinpei screamed something about big boys not needing to listen to dumb girls and kept running.

"Joe!"

He ignored her, too.

"Leave him alone!"

Both boys disappeared over the rise. Jun grabbed up Jinpei's stuff and followed.

The remaining three dried off and changed into their clothes.

"I hope Joe doesn't chase him all the way to the house like that," Ken said with concern.

"Jinpei can take care of himself. Why would you worry about it?" Ryu asked.

Nambu supplied the answer, "Because he's prone to ear infections and he'll probably catch cold."

They heard several loud shouts and Jun's high-pitched command to stop.

"Joe really should know better," Ken said.

Ryu gave him a look.

Nambu nodded in assent. There was a high-pitched squeal-- probably Joe catching up to Jinpei-- followed by a slightly deeper one-- probably Jinpei getting loose somehow.

"I might as well start preparing that lecture now."

Ryu and Ken exchanged looks, unsure as to whether Nambu was making a joke.

Later on, Dr. Nambu had to administer that lecture with modifications. Modifications that added another ten minutes to Joe's sitting time. Modifications that had everything to do with the water Nambu found pooling in the drive way.

Not only had Joe chased Jinpei into exhaustion but he'd forgotten to shut off the water in the bathroom when he'd re-filled the furo.